Target America: A Sniper Elite Novel by Scott McEwen Page A

were only twenty or thirty people in the cathedral this morning, scattered among the pews, some sitting and some on their knees, all of them lost in their own thoughts. A man in a black suit and dark sunglasses entered the pew behind her and sat down just off her right shoulder. She could feel him looking at her, realizing he’d probably sat there to stare, something not uncommon in her experience. Since he was too close for her to have a private conversation anyway, she decided to move.
    “What’s wrong?” the man said in Spanish as she stood up to leave. “Am I not good enough to pray with?”
    She looked at him, and he removed the glasses, his bulbous eyes unmistakable.
    Fear surged in her veins. She cast a panicked look around, seeing that one of Castañeda’s men covered every exit.
    “Please,” Castañeda said. “Sit. We have much to talk about, you and I.”
    Having little choice, Mariana retook her seat. “What have you done with Señora Rodríguez?”
    Castañeda smiled, placing a hand upon his breast. “I am Señora Rodríguez,” he said pleasantly, “and I remain at your service.”
    Mariana felt like the biggest idiot of all time. One of her most reliable informants over the last nine months had been Castañeda himself, the very man whose movement she’d been attempting to track. He’d been leading her on a wild goose chase, feeding her intel that, while reliable, always led the DEA to only small shipments of drugs—never the coveted mother lode, and never anywhere close to Castañeda.
    He saw the angry look on her face and chortled. “Don’t look that way,” he said, switching to English to reduce their chances of being understood by anyone coming close. “I’ve given you nothing but truthful information since we began our correspondence. You should be grateful.”
    Mariana was remembering that she’d been put into contact with Señora Rodriguez through a man named Sergio, whom she had not heard from in some time. “And Sergio?” she asked quietly.
    “Oh, I’m afraid Sergio is quite dead,” Castañeda said. “It’s interesting, don’t you think, that the DEA chose to act on only about a third of the information I sent to you? Why do you believe that is?”
    Mariana felt her face grow hot. “Why are we having this meeting, Señor Castañeda?”
    “I’ve already told you. I have information about the nuclear device that was detonated in Puerto Paloma.”
    She stared at him, wondering how seriously to take what he was saying. He was known to toy with his victims before killing them. She put her arm over the back of the pew, turning to look at him more directly in an attempt to appear confident. “In that case, I’m listening.”
    He became very serious, and she saw genuine concern on his face. “First, I’m going to need certain guarantees.”
    She almost didn’t believe her eyes or her ears. Castañeda wasn’t just concerned, he was afraid of something, and he was coming to the CIA for help—coming to her , the woman who’d been hunting him all across the state of Chihuahua. “Guarantees? You’re the leader of a drug cartel, and your people have done horrible things on both sides of the border. I’m not sure what kinds of guarantees you think anyone would be willing to give you.”
    He sat forward, resting his elbows on his knees and keeping his voice low. “Listen to me. I am prepared to tell you precisely what kind of device was detonated, exactly how many kilotons, who made it, who detonated it, and exactly where he was when he detonated it . . . but not without guarantees.”
    Mariana was hard pressed to conceal the excitement that began to simmer in her blood. She suddenly saw herself halfway to having her own office in Langley, the white Range Rover she’d been dreaming about, a house in Georgetown, out of the field and into the upper echelon—all for the price of a few guarantees. “What guarantees?” she asked, trying to appear doubtful.
    “I had nothing